Tape comprising a backing having a layer of pressure sensitive adhesive on both sides (e.g. Acrylic foam tape available from Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, St. Paul, Minn.) is finding wide acceptance for adhering body side moldings to automobiles. Such tape is supplied to the automaker in rolls and has a liner over one coating of pressure sensitive adhesive to afford unwinding of the tape. The automaker continuously extrudes the side molding, cools it as by allowing it to pass through a water bath, presses the non-liner covered adhesive coated surface of the tape against a surface of the molding, and subsequently rolls the extrusion into a supply coil or cuts it to length for use on autos. The moving extrusion pulls the tape from the supply roll which typically is supported on a rotatable hub.
Typically when the end of the tape on any one roll is reached, an operator manually adheres the beginning of the tape on another roll in end to end relationship with that end on the extrusion, whereupon the tape is pulled from the new roll. Such manual splicing requires frequent attention of the operator and may require the operator to wait at the roll while an end portion of the tape unwinds before the new roll can be started. Also, if the operator is not present when that end is reached, many yards of extrusion may move past the place of tape application without being taped, which can result in costly manual taping or scraping of such untaped extrusion.